Ten Cover Tunes Worth Wrapping Your Ears Around

Share.

Essential soniference for those with a déjà vu fetish.

By Spence D.

The cover tune is timeless. Many a band has cut their musical teeth covering another band's recognizable catalog. Heck, some bands have built an entire career out of tweaking the music of others (remember Dread Zeppelin?).

For the most part the true conceptual nature of the cover is all about paying homage to your influences, telling the world where you came from, in a manner of speaking. The artistic angle of the cover, however, comes in the way that a band takes the source material and effectively turns the song into their own. As you can possibly imagine this is a tricky challenge, to say the least. Many bands falter when they attempt a cover, falling back on the crutch of painting-by-numbers (i.e. playing the song note for note so that it bears an almost uncanny resemblance to the original).

The true test of a cover is when a band takes the original and tweaks it just enough so that it is not only recognizable to the masses, but also puts an indelible stamp on it, thus making it more the band's song than the original artists. When a band can take a cover and make it their own, then it can be a life-changing experience. Okay, maybe that's a bit much, but it can definitely shed new light on an old classic, which is what doing a cover is all about when you really get down to the nitty gritty.

So, without further adieu, we present our picks for cover songs that not only pay the deepest respect to the original source material, but more importantly showcase a band taking a classic and making it truly their own.

Ten Covers Tunes Worth Wrapping Your Ears Around

The Cardigans – "Iron Man" (found on First Band On The Moon; originally by Black Sabbath)

While Sabbath's "Iron Man" is one of those historical heavy metal jams that's virtually recognizable to every pair of ears on Earth, having it covered by the Nina Persson fronted Swedish outfit is another thing entirely. The band wasn't a stranger to the music of Ozzy, Iomi, Butler, and company, however, having dished out their own unique take on "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath" on their previous albums Life and Emmerdale.

Devo – "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" (found on Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!; originally done by The Rolling Stones)

On the surface Ohio bred, de-evolutionaries Devo would seem to have very little in common with the working class blues construct of vintage Rolling Stones. Then again early Devo was a lot more guitar oriented than their geeky, synth image of latter days would suggest. Their cover of this Stones staple is amazing, from the slinky, guitar slander on down to the herky-jerky vocal twang, It not only manages to capture the raw energy of the original, but it takes the song into entirely new terrain, as well.

This was the breakthrough cover by ELP, who would later go on to tackle Alberto Ginastera's Piano Concerto No. 1, Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition," and various pieces by Bach and Prokofiev (as well as another Copland staple, "Fanfare For The Common Man"), amongst others. Unlike some of their other more bombastic interpretations of classical music, "Hoedown" is a short, sharp, and sweet little ditty that has become one of the band's more recognizable signatures.